


she likes donuts with her morning coffee

by zombeesknees



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 12:59:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17101037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: Pepper Potts is determined to keep her relationship with Tony Stark strictly professional, but few women can resist the combined temptations of Tony’s smile, alcohol, and fresh donuts. | Written many moons ago on LJ.





	she likes donuts with her morning coffee

“Mr. Stark, you do know the legal term for this is sexual harassment?”

“Come on, Pepper, loosen up! It’s your night off!”

“And yet I’m spending it with you, like I spend every other night of the week.”

“Are you saying you don’t enjoy my company, Ms. Potts?”

“Tony, quit being so immature and don’t take that injured tone with me. I know for a fact you were wining and dining Miss Minnesota last night.”

“Wining and dining, yes, but she’s a good Catholic girl, and I respected that.” Pepper was staring vaguely into the distance and didn’t notice the cavalier smile he’d slapped on. He sighed; sometimes the woman just refused to take a joke. “It was her first time in California. The girl had to see Rodeo Drive and the Hollywood sign and eat at Augustine’s. I was just being friendly, is all. I’m being a good tin soldier these days.”

Pepper toyed with the olives in her dirty martini. “Just why did you bring me here, Tony?”

“It’s Friday night and I didn’t feel like going to the Lakers game. I figured you’d like a night out, and I owed you a vodka martini.” He waved a languorous hand in the direction of a waitress, who bustled over with a fresh tray of martinis and bottles of beer. 

“If you’re trying to get me drunk, that’s an exercise in futility,” Pepper said archly, draining the last of her glass and picking up another. “I come from a long line of Irish drunks.”

“And I like a lot of Irish drinks. What d’you call that one where they take a warm pint of dark ale and drop a hot stone in it?”

“Don’t know,” Pepper said, looking vaguely in another direction, giving her employer the impression that she couldn’t be bothered to have a conversation with him.

The truth of the matter was, she’d been flattered when Tony had pounded up the stairs from his lab to catch her as she was putting on her coat to leave for the night. Nine years working with the man, she’d seen him in everything from Armani suits to bathrobes and she _still_ thought he looked best when wearing a holey t-shirt covered in engine grease. 

When he’d asked her to go out for drinks with that lopsided grin of his, his hair wild and smelling of smoke, she had had to restrain herself from shouting an excited yes. It wouldn’t do to seem too eager.

All things considered, she was confident she’d made the right choice in keeping their relationship strictly professional. It had been almost a year since Tony’s world-shaking announcement at that press conference, and there had been plenty of scrapes and excitement in the past eleven months; two extremely close calls, one hospital stay, and a broken leg, just to name a few. And Tony was still Tony, no matter how much he claimed to be a reformed man. 

She didn’t need a broken heart _and_ an unemployment slip if things went south or six feet under. 

Still, she couldn’t entirely stop herself from admiring his ass in those jeans when he got up to play a game of pool with one of the waiters. And she did appreciate the privacy of the place, which Tony had rented out for the night an hour ago, much to the surprise and excitement of the owner, who’d then requested an autograph and picture. Of course, Tony being Tony, he’d obliged the man without a moment’s hesitation, smiling widely and giving the thumbs up as the bartender snapped the picture. No doubt it would be framed and hanging above the bar by the time the place opened tomorrow.

“You know, Pepper,” Tony said, leaning against the table and reaching for another beer. “You should wear your hair down like that more often. I like it.”

She could feel the burn of a blush and quickly sipped her martini, hoping the dim lighting hid it. But with the way Tony’s smile spread, she knew she hadn’t been that lucky.

“Explain to me, if you would, just _why_ you won’t go out to dinner with me?” He dropped into the chair, his legs akimbo and spread in _just enough_ of a suggestive way to catch her eyes. 

“Isn’t there some rule on the Stark Industries books that forbids fraternization in the company?” Pepper said sharply, looking away.

“Pepper, in case you hadn’t noticed, I own Stark Industries. I can always change the rulebook.” 

“A dinner is too much like a date. And I won’t go on a date with you, Mr. Stark.”

“Tell me why. I’m being entirely serious here. Either you tell me why you refuse to go on a date with me or you’re fired.” 

She looked for that tell-tale twinkle he always had in his eyes when he was bullshitting, but it wasn’t there. “You wouldn’t dare. You couldn’t survive without me.”

“I memorized my social security number last month. I could get by.”

She sighed and threw back her fourth martini shot-style. After a brief pause to cough at the alcoholic burn in her throat, she said, “Because you’re a womanizer, and a drunk, and you constantly throw yourself headfirst into danger. I want a man who’s steady and respectable and will keep all of his appointments and won’t be shot to death by a tank while flying around in an oversized Power Ranger suit.”

“…Did you just call Iron Man a wannabe Power Ranger?”

“And that! That right there! You take every serious moment and _immediately_ turn it into some juvenile joke! You have the mentality of a thirteen-year-old, Tony Stark!”

“But Pepper,” Tony said, shuffling his chair closer to hers, leaning in with _that_ grin and _that_ raised eyebrow. “Would you really want me any other way?”

And when he put it that way... No, she really didn’t. Tony was exasperating and difficult and sometimes frightening when he was on a real tear, but that was Tony. He was a puffed up school-boy with a brand new toy he wanted to show everyone. A gleeful little crow who knew he had the fanciest feathers and looked damn good in them. A ridiculously sexy man who knew he could have just about any woman he wanted.

It still frustrated her that she wanted him so badly; he’d come from the factory with BAD NEWS stamped on every molecule, and she usually hated the lady-killers who were so damn smug about their conquests.

But she hadn’t caught him with an Olympic gymnast or supermodel or waitress since that fateful press conference. And while he spent most of his nights tinkering in his lab with Jarvis, at least he wasn’t drinking as much as he used to. And while he came home with bullet holes in his armor more times than not, at least he seemed genuinely satisfied with life. He _knew_ he was doing something that was worthwhile and appreciated; his life had purpose.

And maybe that was all she _really_ needed in a man: a sense of purpose. A drive to do and be better. 

“And why are you so persistent, Mr. Stark?” Pepper asked.

“Because those pencil skirts you wear are irresistible and I’ve always had a thing for redheads. And I think you’re the most admirable woman I’ve ever met, Ms. Pepper Potts. Besides Rhodey, you’re the only other person in the world I trust explicitly.”

“What about Happy?” she teased.

“Well, Happy is a given, but he doesn’t look so nice in silk blouses. Rhodey doesn’t either, for that matter.”

And finally, she laughed.

\---

Couldn’t remember how they got back from the bar. There was a discreet driver and a car—there was always a car, probably some sleek black Audi—and there was champagne in the car, and when the champagne hit the martinis she found she didn’t care about sticking to her schedule and couldn’t care less that she’d left her appointment book behind on the pool table.

She _did_ remember when they staggered into the front foyer and Tony pulled his mouth away from hers long enough to mumble some sort of hello to Jarvis and to “not bother with the alarm clock in the morning and, oh, lock the doors, will you?” and she’d started laughing uncontrollably because her pink lipstick was smeared all over his face.

She remembered nearly falling up the stairs to his bedroom and snapping the heel off one of her stilettos and half-screaming, half-giggling when he’d simply picked her up and thrown her over one shoulder barbarian style, throwing her down on the bed before tripping over his pants and falling face-first onto the mattress beside her with an undignified squawk of surprise.

She remembered that she couldn’t remember ever laughing so hard before in her entire life, and that Tony pulled one of the most hilarious expressions she’d ever seen when he couldn’t figure out how to unbutton her shirt properly. She remembered thinking they were both a bit far gone from alcohol, and then thinking that she didn’t really care.

And she remembered the feel of his chest against hers, the metal of his steel heart shockingly cold against her skin, the pulse of the battery a pleasant hum between them as the pale blue glow of its light turned the room into something out of a hazy dream. She remembered his fingers tangled in her hair and the scratch of his beard against her shoulder and his teeth at her ear and his voice in her head. She remembered she couldn’t stop gasping his name and that she left the imprint of her nails on his arms.

She remembered the moments that mattered and forgot the qualities that didn’t.

\---

It was nine in the morning, the sun was outrageously bright, and she was in Tony Stark’s bed.

How surreal.

“What do you want with your coffee?” He called from the kitchen downstairs. She heard the clattering of cups, and began hunting through the tangled bed sheets for her bra. “And don’t you dare get out of that bed, Ms. Potts. We’re being decadent this morning; I’ve canceled all of the day’s appointments and we’re going to lounge about like the wealthy, entitled bastard I am.”

She hesitantely sipped the coffee he held out; she was almost certain Tony Stark hadn’t made a cup of coffee even once in his life. But she was surprised to find it not only decent but well done, and straight-up black the way she liked it.

“How did you know I take my coffee black?”

“I make it my business to know about my employees. Not that I’ve ever really considered you an employee.”

She smiled at that, and at his tousled hair. “This is almost perfect.”

“And what, exactly, is this morning lacking?” he demanded, sipping from his own mug.

“Donuts,” she said glibly. “Glazed donuts.”

“And is that all that my lady requires to have a perfect morning?”

She paused as if to think about it with a smile. “Yes, that’s all.”

“Coming right up.”

When she heard the blast of the engines, she knew it wasn’t the Viper he was taking out, and couldn’t help but sigh with a shake of her head. There was another PR fiasco on the fast-approaching horizon, she just knew it…

\---

“Are you under the influence of alcohol, Mr. Stark?” the police officer shouted through the megaphone.

“I was a few hours ago, officer, but I’m perfectly fine now,” Tony shouted back. He pulled out a donut from the box, and shifted in his seat. Giant donuts weren’t really ergonomic. “It’s just that these donuts looked so good, I had to stop and have one before heading home.”

“Stark, get the hell off that building! Think that roof was designed to support that donut _and_ your metallic ass?”

“I suspect not, Fury, but it’s been a lifelong dream of mine to sit in this donut. I figured, why pass up the chance?”

\---

Pepper sighed again and turned off the TV in the middle of the **LIVE! COVERAGE: THE INDESTRUCTIBLE IRON MAN LOVES RANDY'S DONUTS** news story.

A perpetual thirteen-year-old, indeed — but at least he meant well.


End file.
